The Diner
by yarntastic
Summary: The time has come and Cronus is finally about to be defeated and the world saved but something has gone horribly wrong and it's only the Oracle who can set things straight again.
1. The Past

' _Hello, I'm:_ **RUTH** '

I was greeted by the tiny plastic nametag when I looked up as my waitress turned over the ceramic mug in front of me and filled it with something comparable to liquid black tar. She looked like a kindly sort, this Ruth, a woman in her late thirties with over-dyed brown hair pulled back into a bun, a pair of large white teardrop-shaped glasses that hung from a chain around her neck, and equally as large dangling chandelier earrings that were gaudy no matter the decade. Our eyes met as I looked over her face and she smiled at me, placing the carafe back on its warmer. It was the smile of a kindly woman, the smile of a mother trying to raise a family on a waitress's pay in this day in age.

It looked like a slow morning so far in the little diner. The only other customers were an older couple sitting in a booth near the entrance and a middle-aged travelling businessman who sat at the far end of the counter alternating between his fork and a cigarette in his one hand while the other paged and trailed over a newspaper above his plate, his briefcase wide open on the seat beside him. I had chosen a seat at the counter as well, a couple chairs to the side of the register. Ruth handed me a laminated menu and removed a pen and pad of paper from the white apron on her baby blue dress that hit just at her knees – just like the dresses in all the old-time movies. "What'll it be, sweetie? We've got a couple specials this morning—"

I kindly cut the woman off as I knew my order before she placed the menu in front of me. It was the same order I made for breakfast in every restaurant since I ended up here. "Actually, I already have something in mind. Just a couple of eggs and some toast, if you'd please," I smiled, handing the sticky menu back to her.

"Straight and to the point. I like that." Ruth winked at me as she placed the menu back where it was moments before. "We've got a plate that's got a couple'a eggs and toast, and it comes with some sausage and bacon. Can I interest you in that?"

"Sure, why not."

"You want 'em fried? The eggs?"

"Please."

"Sure thing, Sweetie." Ruth winks at me again before walking off the give my order to the cook. I take the opportunity of her absence to sip my coffee, which tasted pretty close to the black tar it resembled. Certainly not the worst coffee I've had since I've been here, though; that award belongs to a little roadside shack six months back and a few hundred miles west of here who also holds the award for the only place, so far, that made me pray for the modern standards of food preparation I'm accustomed to.

"Hey, Buddy!" A male voice sounded from behind me as a hand clasped my shoulder hard.

I spin around on the metal stool, startled, my own hand instantly flying to my pocket where, at a later point in my life, I kept my weapon.

"Didn't mean to startle ya," the businessman laughs in a voice that booms through the entire tiny restaurant. "I'm just headin' out. Wanted to know if you'd like today's paper. I'm done with it. No use to me on the road."

I nod, thanking the man for the paper as he makes his way out of the restaurant. I'm not sure if I'll ever get used to the kindness and hospitality that seems to come naturally to everyone this day in age. Regardless, I stare down at the paper now in my hands.

Reagan this.

Vietnam that.

Beatles. Doors. Elvis.

Same news. Different people. I fold the paper back up and place it on the counter beside me, taking one quick glance at the date. I can't help but smile. 'Just think," I tell myself, 'two more years and you get to witness the moon landing.'

My thoughts are interrupted by the large and steaming plate of food Ruth sets in front of me. "Thank you." I nod to her as I begin work on my meal.

She lingers a little. They always do. I'm pretty sure I even know the question she has for me on the tip of her tongue.

"You're not from these parts, are you?"

Right on the money. "Not really. Down on my luck and decided to hit the road. Felt a calling somewhere out this way, you know?" But that's not what she means.

I take a stab at a sausage link.

It's the wardrobe that's decades ahead of its time. Blue jeans from a company whose CEO probably isn't born yet. A t-shirt in a color and style no designer is anywhere near considering to be in fashion. And a haircut that's too long for a proper young man but too short and a few years too soon to consider qualifying for hippie status. And not to mention the dialect of different time periods isn't exactly on my side.

She laughs. "Not sure what's calling you, but there ain't much out this way besides this diner, Sweetie."

As if on cue a couple strolls inside and sits at one of the booths. Ruth gives me another one of her winks as she grabs some menus and the carafe of liquid tar and scuttles off toward the table.

I take the opportunity of the few precious moments without a nosy waitress to glance at the old couple that was sitting near the entrance but who were now on their way out the door, crossing in front of the diner's windows along the sidewalk. I wasn't planning on stopping in here this morning, but when I saw them through the window from across the street I changed my mind. They've never seen me before in their combined millennia of years, but I would recognize that wirey old man with a floor-length beard and his grey hair, grey-eyed, wife who held herself with the poise of royalty anywhere.

I finally made it to my destination.


	2. The Present

Just down the street, nearly a half century from that day in that diner, a frail old man slides a key into a rusted padlock, unlocking his stand for the day. It wasn't much, this large metal box on the street corner, but it was his pride and joy – his calling, if you will. He put himself on autopilot and set about his morning routine of opening the doors and awning to the stand, and changing out the old papers and magazines with the new ones sitting in neatly tied stacks on the sidewalk beside his stand, placing the old ones in a pile behind the small structure to deal with later. Next, he drags out the stool and wheeled cart from within the stand. He fishes out another key from his key ring and unlocks the tiny padlock on the wheeled cart and removes the small cash box, placing it on top of the cart. He fishes around in his pockets yet again and pulls out a few odd bills and coins and adds it to the box, not really caring how much or how little was ever in there. Finally, he sets himself down on the creaky wooden stool and awaits the business for the day, sipping his coffee and muttering about the incompetence of today's baristas.

This was the routine every day for the old man for many years. He sat in this very spot, selling papers and magazines as the world turned around him. That diner down the street wasn't a diner anymore; it had changed owners and names a few times over the years before finally becoming vacant and reinventing itself as a cheesy retro-style soda shoppe that was popular among today's youth. The town itself had changed names twice in the last half-century before settling on the one he had always been familiar with, and had grown from the tiny town a person could miss by blinking at the wrong moment to the bustling bright city he had always been fond of. From his perch at his stand, the old man watched the city around him unfold. He watched buildings rise and buildings fall. He watched protesters protest and political figures practice what they considered politics.

He hadn't always done this, selling papers on the street corner. No, as a young man he did his best to blend in with the new world around him, working small jobs that were enough to get him by and keep a roof over his head. But as the years trailed by he created a name for himself purely by accident. Word grew around the growing city about a man who knew things, things that hadn't happened yet. Important things, big things, world things – and they always came true. Always. People would seek the man out, asking questions about the future; their futures. The man did his best to fake knowing peoples' personal lives. He only knew world events, after all; wars, deaths, political events, companies who were going to make it big, and whatever random tidbits he remembered from his history lessons. He had been given a name by these people who came to visit him; a name that lead him to buy this little stand on the corner, a name that made him realize a role he needed to play if the world was to survive.

"Oracle? Oracle! Hellooooo?"

The redhead snaps her fingers in front of the old man's face, pulling him out of his deep thought. Startled, the old man adjusts his glasses and sits up straight on his wooden stool. He had been deep in thought, staring at his younger self and remembering this very moment. Today was the day. The day where he would tell the young girl and himself that this was the day they would defeat Cronus, that this was the plan that would work.

He watches the young man nervously glance at the girl beside him. The old man remembered thinking it was weird how the Oracle was looking at him that day – today.

"Oh—Oh, yes. Your question. Cronus." The old man coughed. He knew what he had to say, and he _had_ to say it. If fighting the god of time had taught him anything, it was that if even the slightest thing changed then everything would end differently.

He told them it would work. All of it.

The idea for Theresa to use her psychic abilities in combination with Herry's strength to contain Cronus within a set parameter. It would work.

The machine Odie had been toiling on night and day for the last few months. It would work.

Archie and Atlanta, working in tandem, to keep Cronus occupied. It would work.

And the important job they were considering giving to Neil they should give to him, because it would work. (That, he knew, was an utter and total lie. But he had to follow the script. And it would work out. Only to create this timeline he got trapped in, not to defeat Cronus.)

The boy and the girl smile, their fears relieved. They thank the old man profusely before walking, and then running, back to the dorms, brimming with the excitement that this was it. That after all these years their hard work was going to pay off.

At least, that's how the old man remembered it.

After watching them sprint off into the distance and turn a corner he lets out a sigh. There was one thing that he didn't tell them, he knew now. One thing he couldn't tell them. The one thing that would go horribly wrong in order for everything else to work. Jay—

"How much?"

He snaps back to reality to find a suit-clad business man waving a copy of Time magazine at him.

"Sir?"

"It's free. Take it." The Oracle lowers his glasses and glares at the man. Being pulled out of his thoughts was starting to grate on the old man's nerves.

The man takes a quick glance at the magazine in his hands.

"Going out of business sale. Now take your irony-filled reading material and scram."


	3. The Future

The Oracle kept telling himself he wasn't quite sure where he was headed. Though, in the back of his mind, he knew that this was where he would end up as he spent most of his evening slowly wandering up and down the streets of New Olympia. He had been so very careful to avoid this entire street from the moment he saw the newly posted street sign so many years ago. Yet, as though it was yesterday he knew exactly when to stop without lifting his eyes from the pavement (and in the strange and twisted reality he was living in, he truly had done this yesterday, but not his current yesterday). He glanced up at the old, familiar building and felt a smile creep across his face, happy to finally see it again. Home.

The Brownstone.

Gently, he placed a hand on the cement rail that followed the steps up to the door he had passed through with his friends so many times he could never count them all if he tried. It was amazing how many memories a few slabs of concrete could hold. All the arguments, the waitings, all the times he held that amazing redhead's hand up and down these steps. The packages, the visitors, the days spent watching traffic go by because some other couple was busy occupying the rooftop. He never realized just how much he missed this place.

"I'm not going in." He spoke to the figure that had silently walked up beside him. "Just saying my goodbyes, Hera."

Smiling, the old woman folded down her hood, her identity revealed before she even had the chance to speak.

"I just had to stop by. One last time."

Hera nodded, but said nothing.

"It worked, didn't it? The plan? Cronus is back in Tartarus? The world is saved? It's all over?"

"Yes, yes it is. Odie's invention worked and created the fake image of Cronus's intended portal, and instead sent him to Tartarus when he stepped through." The goddess's voice was quiet, stern. "But something happened. Somehow, Jay stepped through the actual portal before Odie could replace the destination. Instead of Tartarus, where he would be let out before Cronus came through, Jay ended up somewhere in time. The world is safe once more, but the young heroes aren't celebrating. They're grieving. They all blame themselves."

It was his turn to be silent and nod. In all his years he never thought about this, about the time after it happened; about the sadness and the grieving. He was always caught up in being stuck in the past and trying to figure out the way to his proper present day. Now that he was here, he wasn't sure what to do now. Nothing was set in stone anymore. Nothing could be predicted anymore. He wasn't the Oracle anymore.

He felt a hand take hold of his where it rested on the cement. Hera was smiling now, her grey eyes warm and comforting, a sight he so very rarely saw from his mentor. "I can help you, Jay."

It had been so long since anyone called him that the name almost sounded foreign.

"I can't give you any more time, but I can help you enjoy whatever you have left."

"Why?"

"Because you're a hero. You deserve to enjoy your success with those who fought by your side. And because I'm a god. I'm allowed to bestow such gifts upon mortals as reward for their actions."

Before he could protest, though he had no desire to, he felt a strange surge wash over him. Starting from where Hera lay her hand and flowing across his body, down to his feet, up through his head. It was a feeling as if layers of himself were being stripped away one by one. Joints no longer ached and he could feel the strength to hold himself straighter, taller. There was a breeze through hair that he had long forgotten about. Within a few blinks, his vision became grossly distorted and he removed his glasses, no longer needing them.

"How long have you known?" He barely finished his question for the voice he heard was so young and strange coming from his lips.

Hera flipped her hood back up over her head. "The gods have been around New Olympia for a long time, Jay. Even before New Olympia was New Olympia. As I recall, there used to be a nice little diner not far from here…"

Jay absentmindedly brushed a hand through his hair, closing his eyes and remembering that little diner from fifty years past. When his eyes opened, Hera was gone.

From behind him, at the other end of the street, he heard a familiar girl cry out his name.

And then the footsteps of six people running towards him.


End file.
